Yeah, I don’t blame ya, while I was away the Rangers rallied past a pretty good Caps team to advance to the 2nd round, and now that I’ve come back, we’ve fallen behind 0-3 to a Boston Bruins team that I felt pretty confident playing against before the series started.

But you know what?

We’re losing because they are flat out better. Stop making excuses or blaming the refs, or the coach, or the GM, or Richards…ok, you can blame Richards, and we’ll come to that, but this is why we are losing….

THEY ARE BETTER.

THEY KNOW HOW TO WIN.

That’s it. Nothing really more to say about that. The Bruins are the New York Rangers, except they are bigger, stronger, and tougher. It would be one thing if we were more skilled, or faster. We aren’t. They’re better, and they’re winning. Sometimes, that’s what happens. Going into this season we all knew Boston, Pittsburgh and the Rangers were the 3 best teams in the East. Lo and Behold all three are in the 2nd round, we just go the shitty honor of playing one of them rather than the 4th team in the equation.

And we got the privilege of doing so without Staal or Clowe, and a pretty banged up squad to boot.

I’m just not sure how on Earth the Rangers will rectify our problems going forward. Not unless they have a magical trade up their sleeves.

Now, let’s get to the elephant in the room.

Brad Richards.

Yeah, boy, beavers been really bad. Like, Ryan Hollweg bad…but at least Hollweg brought MOAR JAM to the team. Richards has just been PUTRID, on the PP, he’s a turnover machine, on his shifts he can’t seem to do ANYTHING correctly.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this guy.

My guess is, if he’s not bought out this summer, he will be the season after. The reason though is NOT because he’s all of a sudden gotten super slow. The dude has always been slow. He’s a guy who’s gotten by on his IQ, not his physical talents. Look at Derek Stepan, postseason aside, he had a terrific season, and I’d argue he’s a WORSE skater than Richards.

Richards really needs a fresh start, I sure hope a long offseason can rejuvenate him, if not, next season will be another disappointment. Nash can’t do it alone.